This is fine.
Had I known it was going to be the last day of ACL, I would have gone all out, but I didn’t foresee the future, so I only went mildly out. Regardless, I was up bright and early, as one of my favorites, and perhaps one of the best acts, had an early slot.
Shotgunned beer? Check.
Now on to my highlights and Brian’s photos.
Fridays tend to ease you in, Saturdays tend to beat you down. Or at least the odds of self-inflicted wounds go up exponentially. You have a little hangover, perhaps you start the day with a bloody mary, but by the end you are shirtless, missing a flip-flop and wondering why your hand is blue. For me, it was a pretty non-stop run at awesome; I won at Festival.
Click-through for a few notes on the first Saturday. *spoiler alert* The Cure wins in the end.
When taking the first look at the ACL Schedule for each weekend, I tend to first see the conflicts in headliners. Luckily, we are fairly conflict free this year, we’ll get into that more soon enough. How about we take a look at a few of the artists put in the early spots? The cool morning grass, the wide expanses to roam and the vendors still relaxed before the dude-bro crush all add up to a child-like wonderment with the scale of the empty festival giving you the this all-for-me feeling. This year’s ATH Approved Early Bird Artists will create the soundtrack for your barefoot dance party.
They may not want to admit it, but for all intents and purposes, Parquet Courts are a Texas band! So, as a Texas-based site, we’re going to say nice things; they’re label What’s Your Rupture rules pretty hard too. With the announcement of a new EP, the band is sure to start making waves again, just as they did with Light Up Gold. This new track has the same chugging guitar lines their debut featured, but it includes new touches like a bit more distortion on the guitars and a recorder/flute. It adds another dimension that will surely make the Tally All the Things That You Broke EP another success. It hits the streets on October 8th, and the band will be playing both weekends of Austin City Limits.
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While it is usually a rather homogenized list of artists, this year’s Spin Party featured some names I wanted to see. Parquet Courts and CHVRCHES were included in the day’s agenda which also gave me a shot to double back on Unknown Mortal Orchestra and check out Solange (Beyoncé’s “indie” sister, y’all). Sorry, had to skip Kendrick Lamar for Girls Names and Small Black . I am sure there were some freebies which I ignored. I got to skip the line with my fancy Red pass and there is a photo pit at Stubb’s, so thank you Spin Mag.
Read on for plenty of pics and my notes on each artist…
It’s really hard to narrow down a list of Top Albums of 2012, especially when you have four contributors with different opinions. We gave the reins to Nathan.Lankford and Nicole Baumann on this one, since they write the majority of the album reviews, but we all have a little representation within this. Now, we do realize that our site has specialized tastes, so please realize that these are our OPINIONS. You’re welcome to disagree, and, in fact, we encourage that process. Also, we’re doing a Top 100 because so many records came out this year, it wouldn’t be fair to narrow it down. Not to mention it might lead you to discover some hits you hadn’t heard about yet. Oh, and we don’t really like Frank Ocean or hip-hop…just a personal choice…here’s the first segment.
I feel like it has been awhile since I’ve posted a good punk rock jam, but luckily today, I got ahold of Parquet Courts latest album, Light Up Gold. The band has roots in Texas, although they currently operate out of New York, so it only seems natural that I’d gravitate towards their sound. On this effort, they’ve got the production down, which has really made way for the songwriting to reach the listeners. Those of you interested in the period where punk merged into post-punk will find yourself happy, as the grooves definitely are pogo worthy, and the vocal delivery is spot on. Happy to support these guys; you can grab their record from Dull Tools.
Download:Parquet Courts – Borrowed Time [MP3]
